Markey, Buck reflect on losses; Big Foot spotted near Boulder?

Happy New Year and welcome back to The Spot’s morning headline roundup …

MARKEY REFLECTS: Betsy Markey leaves Congress after two years without regret – and with a feeling that more public service lies in her future. “I wouldn’t have traded it for the world. When you think that only 10,000 Americans ever have served in Congress, it’s an incredible honor to be there,” the Democrat from Fort Collins said in an interview with The Coloradoan.

QUOTABLE:

“We sit down and we say, ‘Well was it having a weak candidate for governor that lost you this election? Was it the get-out-the-vote effort? Was it the nasty commercials?’ ” Buck said from his office in downtown Greeley recently. “Really it’s everything. It’s my lack of experience as a candidate. It’s all of these other things combined that led to the closest Senate race in the country. You can’t pinpoint one thing and say that’s what caused this defeat,” Weld County DA Ken Buck, a Republican, analyzing his November loss to Sen. Michael Bennet in The Greeley Tribune.

EMERGING FROM THE WHITE OUT: T. Wright Dickinson said he’s considered a run for the state’s Senate District 8 seat for a while, according to The Craig Daily Press. “I’d anticipated that when Al White’s term ended that I might run,” Dickinson said. “(White’s) transition to a new job just brought that on a little sooner.”

DISPOSAL DEBATE: The Garfield County commissioners today will be asked to approve an injection well for disposal of “produced water” from the area’s gas drilling industry, a disposal method the use of which has been predicted to increase in the coming years, The Glenwood P-I reports. The injection well is to deposit the waste water in the Ohio Creek formation, at a depth of about 4,000 feet. The Ohio Creek formation sits above the Williams Fork formation, which holds vast quantities of natural gas, but below the level of groundwater aquifers, according to industry statements.

COLORADO’S GOT TALENT: Destinee Reed, 15, will perform at Gov.-elect John Hickenlooper’s inaugural celebration Jan. 11, after winning a statewide talent competition for elementary, junior high and high school students, The Sentinel reports.

Lynn Bartels thinks politics is like sports but without the big salaries and protective cups. The Washington Post's "The Fix" blog has named her one of Colorado's best political reporters and tweeters.

Joey Bunch has been a reporter for 28 years, including the last 12 at The Denver Post. For various newspapers he has covered the environment, water issues, politics, civil rights, sports and the casino industry.